I think this would be useful on the Japanese site, as well as possibly the German or other foreign language sites when dealing with simple translation requests. As Robert Cartanio mentions here, these foreign language sites should not serve as rudimentary "translate this word for me" services for simple words or phrases.

Complex words, or cases where there are nuances or strict usage guidelines (like idioms) are on-topic for the site, but if I can flip open any of a dozen Japanese-English dictionaries and find the appropriate translation almost immediately, it's not an interesting or beneficial question.

The community seems to agree with this, as simple translation questions were declared as off-topic in several meta posts as well as the site's definition. Also, simple translation questions are being voted closed by the community.

However, when voting to close such a question, there isn't a good close reason that adequately describes the real reason the question is being closed (namely, why didn't you ask your dictionary?). Currently, we're using "Not Constructive" which doesn't quite mean the same thing.

I think "General Reference" would be a better fit for these cases.

I think this would be useful on the Japanese site, as well as possibly the German or other foreign language sites when dealing with simple translation requests. As Robert Cartanio mentions here, these foreign language sites should not serve as rudimentary "translate this word for me" services for simple words or phrases.

Complex words, or cases where there are nuances or strict usage guidelines (like idioms) are on-topic for the site, but if I can flip open any of a dozen Japanese-English dictionaries and find the appropriate translation almost immediately, it's not an interesting or beneficial question.

The community seems to agree with this, as simple translation questions were declared as off-topic in several meta posts as well as the site's definition. Also, simple translation questions are being voted closed by the community.

However, when voting to close such a question, there isn't a good close reason that adequately describes the real reason the question is being closed (namely, why didn't you ask your dictionary?). Currently, we're using "Not Constructive" which doesn't quite mean the same thing.

I think "General Reference" would be a better fit for these cases.